IBM attire

It wasn't too long ago that some observers said that IBMers wore a uniform of pin-striped suits, white button-down shirts, rep ties and wing-tipped shoes. Who us?

While it may have been true there was a time such attire was not uncommon in IBM offices, it is also true that pin-striped suits, white button-down shirts, rep ties and wing-tipped shoes were not unique to IBM -- then or now. In fact, IBM men and women, like people everywhere, have tended to dress pretty much in the fashions prevailing in their own period and place.

As the style of business clothing around the world has evolved and varied with the passage of time, so too has the appearance of IBMers changed from year to year and from locale to locale.

Here -- in a kind of diversity fashion timeline -- is an album of just some of the many people in many countries who helped to make IBM a 20th century global success. And, aside from a baseball team in 1938, there's not a uniform among them.